Preached March 14th,2010 at St David of Wales
Joshua 5:9-12
Psalm 32
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
Jesus, you are the older brother who rejoices with your father at each of our returns, let us feast with you as we welcome every lost son home.
Amen
On the second Friday of the month, I join a few other women from St. Michaels and go out to 82nd to Sts Peter and Paul. There, every Friday night the doors are open to women who for whatever reason find themselves on the street. We serve dinner and offer basic supplies, toilet paper and laundry soap. It’s not much, honestly in the face of pain and brokenness to say here you go my sister- a bowl of soup and a bar of soap. But it is a safe place. warm and dry and reliable. It is a refuge from the streets even if only for an hour or two, where there will be no men, no fear, no abuse. So this past Friday I was there and usually we are pretty much done by 9, and the three of us were sitting for a few more minutes before we started to clean up. It was a kind of slow night, there had maybe been 10 women. Some withdrawn and quiet, some high and manic. One woman who had to eat her soup slowly and carefully because of her split lip and swollen jaw.
as sometimes happens just when you think a night is over one more woman came in. She was wearing a thin shirt and was shivering and damp. After going out to the needle exchange van, she came and sat down to have a bowl of soup. And she began to tell us her story. Jennifer is 42 years old and first started working on the streets when she was 13. She figured she could start making some money off what her family had been taking for free. For years a pimp controlled her every move and got her well hooked on crack. In escaping from him she found heroin and impossibly things got worse. over the years things would get better and then worse. She told us how she has gotten clean many times before and how she wants to again. She wants to go home. She has two grown children, and a granddaughter. She was clean once for seven years. Finished school and became a drug and alcohol counselor, then relapsed. Most recently, she spent 9 months with her daughter and granddaughter. She had gone to her daughter’s door and knocked. Her daughter took her in and forgave her again. in less than a year she was back on the street.
Jennifer looked hard at us and asked “How many times do I ask my children to forgive me? How does a mother do this to her children? How can I ever go home again?”
In the reading from Joshua, the Israelites have finally made it home. It took them forty years and whole generation had grown up in the desert. The part we heard today comes right after they have all been circumcised. They are back into a right relationship with God. They are home. And God says "Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt."
And after they celebrate Passover, they eat the fruit of the promised land. The exodus was over they no longer had manna to eat; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan from then on. They had made it home but they still have this huge conquest ahead of them. they are about to start circling Jericho, but just for now they feast and relish in their homecoming and forgiven state.
the psalmist tells us:
“Happy are they whose transgressions are forgiven, *
and whose sin is put away!”
I said," I will confess my transgressions to the LORD." *
Then you forgave me the guilt of my sin.
Why do we fear repentance? according to everything we have heard today it is good news. We will be happy, and welcomed and fed.
Which brings us to what is probably the best repentance story ever.
Now Jesus doesn’t name the parables but we do and one we have come to know this one as the prodigal son. It’s a parable that rings so true in all of its family dynamics and emotional weight. the lost son reunited with his father, the jealousy of the older brother who never did anything wrong and now seems to regret it. The love of the father- its all there.
We have been welcomed home and we will leave again. there is probably never a week that goes by that anyone can say with absolute certainty “Father, I have never disobeyed your command” but this brother also gets searched out by the father , he goes after the self righteous and indignant as well as the humble and broken.
During Lent we get to explore and live into this holy homesickness. We are called to long for a place where we will be known and fed. That longing is the beginning of repentance. We get to practice looking for places in our lives where we settling for pig food. We are called to dream of home and start heading towards it.
I would love for Jennifer’s story to end like the younger son’s. She comes home there is a celebration anyone not thrilled to see her gets a word from dad, and the party is lavish. But she has already done that and it didn’t last. She relapsed and ended up back on the streets.
this side of heaven we are all wounded and messy and sometimes homesick for a lifetime. In real life getting home is often the beginning of a longer harder story.
Faith is ongoing lifetime of repenting and continued reconciliation and yet we proclaim one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins. this is one of the mysteries of faith : We are ultimately and profoundly reconciled with God, and yet still seeking ever greater union.
We have been given a stake in the kingdom and now we need to practice living like its true. Coming home is not the end, finally making it to Canaan is not the end. Good Friday is not the end. Easter is not the end. Even Pentecost is not the end.
there is no end on this side of the river.
After finishing her soup on Friday, Jennifer went and washed her hair in the bathroom sink got high again and headed out into the cold and rainy night on 82nd.
What does my faith do in these places? How do we proclaim a gospel of hope in a world that specializes in despair?
Practice.
Going to church and loving each other is kingdom practice. none of what Jesus asks of us comes easily none of it comes naturally and if we want to have any hope of responding spontaneously like Jesus its going to take a lot of practice.
The Eucharist is our welcome home feast. We do it over and over again because its such crazy good news we just might never recover.
“Tell me again” we say “the story of how you welcome me home.” we aren’t going to have the tidiness of parable lives, we are going to be like the prodigal son in relapse but we are liturgical people. and we can live this story over and over because we know how it ends. We know that there is feasting and rejoicing, hugs and reunion. and we know that after repentance there is forgiveness.
Every week we get to turn around again and set our faces for our Fathers house and brace ourselves for love.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Start Now
Preached January 17th 2010 at St. David of Wales
Epiphany 2 Year C
Isaiah 62:1-5
Psalm 36:5-10
1 Corinthians 12:1-11
John 2:1-11
Jesus, as you did in Cana of Galilee take the old water of our busy lives and turn it into gospel wine-
Amen
In the gospel of John, this miracle of water into wine is the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. We open with John’s beautiful poem of incarnation: the litany of the Word, in which the Word is made flesh and dwells among us. Then we get to see what this incarnate Word does. He is baptized by John, and calls 3 disciples, all in the first chapter. But then the next thing that happens, and I here I do love John, is that Jesus after getting baptized and ready to start his public ministry doesn’t go into the desert to fast and wrestle with demons, he goes to a party.
This is a wedding feast, presumably family friends since his mama is there. We don’t know a whole lot about these people except that their hospitality and generosity outstrippes their means, which is a flaw I can respect. This is the opposite problem of the banquet giver who has the feast all prepared and has to go out in the streets to find people to celebrate with.
it seems that these are the two basic stories of the whole world, either not enough to go around or, an overabundance and no one to share it with. hunger and loneliness are each in their own way equally tragic. And the kingdom of course is where there is enough for everybody who shows up and a family to share it with.
So this is the starting point.
Maybe Jesus wasn’t ready yet. He was still in that tender place between call and action.
He might have known what he had to do he just wasn’t quite ready to get started. Or maybe he had no idea what this was going to look like, this new life of radical relationship with God. He was full of the Holy Spirit, had three guys already following him around. You can imagine the level of expectation from them at least. “all right, we found the Messiah!! can’t wait to see what he is going to do.”
This is the in breath before the song. Who knows what he was waiting for, maybe for the time to “feel” right. Or God to speak clearly again.
What do you do if you have heard the voice of God telling you to go.
go where? do what?
Like standing at the top of a diving board. with your toes hanging over the edge, the moment just before you stand up and speak, before you walk across the room, or pick up the phone. Once you have made the hard choice to do something to follow a call there is a certain peace and perfection of the imminent vision which is completely ruined by beginning.
Your imagined journey is never the same the real road beneath your dusty feet.
We all know that the only way to keep your plans intact is to never start.
And maybe Jesus isn’t quite ready to go there yet. Maybe he wants to savor his call a little more, ponder the route, talk it over with his new friends, maybe come up with a stratagem.
Maybe he wanted to start with something more impressive than helping out with refreshments the wedding reception of some poor friends of him mom?.
When Mary tells him that the wine has run out she doesn’t tell him how to fix it, she doesn’t even tell him to fix it, she just says “they have no wine.” [By the way, this is great parenting, - don’t nag or fuss or tell your kid what to do, simply state the situation and leave the rest up to them.] so that’s all she says
“ they have no wine.”
you can almost hear the exasperation in his voice. “Mom, this isn’t the time. This isn’t how it is supposed to begin. This is my thing, so don’t tell me when to start, ok?”
of course Mary hasn’t said anything but that they are out of wine.
See what Mary knows, as a mother, is that the time is never right, and if you wait for a perfect beginning nothing will ever get done. She knows that once you are on your way there is another kind of splendor in the real, in the doing. It is a rustier, more worn and tattered beauty, but it has been begun. In the company of people who will add their own imperfection, their own misunderstandings, and their own shabby glory. They will do it wrong, and they will save it, and they will screw it up, and they will be beautiful, and they will add things you never thought of. and that is the rub of incarnation. when you are a part of this world you have no choice but to do your work here in this world.
If you wait until your inner vision perfectly matches this messy world, you will miss it all, because it ain’t gonna happen.
Welcome Word to our untidy reality.
So you start when the need in front of you is in your power to fill, no matter how “important.” I wouldn’t be surprised if most of us would prefer the cool and dramatic calls. There is a church that I pass on my way to the library that has a sign that always provides challenging theological morsels for my walk. They had one over Christmas that said something like don’t get about tickle me Elmo, Get Jesus! I took turns reading it tickle me Jesus, or picturing the look on a small child face when they unwrapped a First century Palestinian Rabbi when they had asked for a red giggling toy.
this summer though they had up for a couple of weeks, Don’t impress people, impress God.
the big question that comes to my mind is, “what precisely do they think will impress the creator of the entire universe? The one who came up with the whole idea of space and time. I think wanting to impress God could lead to a lifelong standstill. While the neighbors might ooh and aah over your latest lawn ornament, God herself knit you together in your mother’s womb. oh yes, but almighty did you see how good I was today? If we are looking for things that will impress God, I am concerned that we will have to look a very long time for the right thing. The other really disturbing image is a God who has a list of impressive and not impressive people. The love of God is really really big. None of us are unimpressive enough to be outside of that kind of love, nor are we ever going to get that far above our brothers and sisters. Seems like a bad game. Just saying.
Jesus’ public ministry begins appropriately enough surrounded by people who don’t have enough, he starts with need and thirst and radical transformation.
So how do we want to be transformed? Who wouldn’t mind a miracle. Here I am lord, change me. Make me organized, out of debt, with a better job, less stress, and maybe 10 pounds thinner. These are the sorts of transformations we try to enact on ourselves, and already now by the 17th of January we have given up most of them. so come on Jesus, help a sister out, right?
If God needs us to liven up this party that we are living today, what changes will he need to make in us?
Chances are it will be more a need for us to be broken open; to weep with the world when we listen to news reports from Haiti; to hold every other wounded, messed up person you meet, in love and gentleness. To lose our ability to hold grudges and live in fear. to forget ourselves, to shake off our pride in what little we have done; to no longer try to fill ourselves to escape the pain of a hurting humanity; to no longer hoard the wealth we have been entrusted with; to say yes to the needs in front of us.
imagine it just for a second,
Like the water in the cool stone jugs of ritual and history, habit and place, when we are transformed, our best is still yet to come.
We are transformed so that we may begin our story of ministry.
The good wine for our celebrations is just now being drawn from the stony jars of our past. And some people may say to us what the steward says- why did you wait this long to be glorious?
There was perfectly good wine before. oh, but what can we become when let ourselves be transformed by the love of Christ-??
Now that wine, will change the world,
that wine will need new wineskins,
that wine will poured out, and shared among friends
that is the wine that is served when there is enough for everyone.
and that wine is the cup of salvation.
This whole amazing ministry of Jesus begins with him stepping into the immediate need before him. And even if this wasn’t the beginning he had hoped for, we all have to start somewhere.
So, What if years from now they tell the story of your work here on earth starting with tomorrow? Maybe you have heard the voice of God calling softly that you are beloved and now you are waiting for further instructions.
here they are: start here - start now.
Amen
Epiphany 2 Year C
Isaiah 62:1-5
Psalm 36:5-10
1 Corinthians 12:1-11
John 2:1-11
Jesus, as you did in Cana of Galilee take the old water of our busy lives and turn it into gospel wine-
Amen
In the gospel of John, this miracle of water into wine is the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. We open with John’s beautiful poem of incarnation: the litany of the Word, in which the Word is made flesh and dwells among us. Then we get to see what this incarnate Word does. He is baptized by John, and calls 3 disciples, all in the first chapter. But then the next thing that happens, and I here I do love John, is that Jesus after getting baptized and ready to start his public ministry doesn’t go into the desert to fast and wrestle with demons, he goes to a party.
This is a wedding feast, presumably family friends since his mama is there. We don’t know a whole lot about these people except that their hospitality and generosity outstrippes their means, which is a flaw I can respect. This is the opposite problem of the banquet giver who has the feast all prepared and has to go out in the streets to find people to celebrate with.
it seems that these are the two basic stories of the whole world, either not enough to go around or, an overabundance and no one to share it with. hunger and loneliness are each in their own way equally tragic. And the kingdom of course is where there is enough for everybody who shows up and a family to share it with.
So this is the starting point.
Maybe Jesus wasn’t ready yet. He was still in that tender place between call and action.
He might have known what he had to do he just wasn’t quite ready to get started. Or maybe he had no idea what this was going to look like, this new life of radical relationship with God. He was full of the Holy Spirit, had three guys already following him around. You can imagine the level of expectation from them at least. “all right, we found the Messiah!! can’t wait to see what he is going to do.”
This is the in breath before the song. Who knows what he was waiting for, maybe for the time to “feel” right. Or God to speak clearly again.
What do you do if you have heard the voice of God telling you to go.
go where? do what?
Like standing at the top of a diving board. with your toes hanging over the edge, the moment just before you stand up and speak, before you walk across the room, or pick up the phone. Once you have made the hard choice to do something to follow a call there is a certain peace and perfection of the imminent vision which is completely ruined by beginning.
Your imagined journey is never the same the real road beneath your dusty feet.
We all know that the only way to keep your plans intact is to never start.
And maybe Jesus isn’t quite ready to go there yet. Maybe he wants to savor his call a little more, ponder the route, talk it over with his new friends, maybe come up with a stratagem.
Maybe he wanted to start with something more impressive than helping out with refreshments the wedding reception of some poor friends of him mom?.
When Mary tells him that the wine has run out she doesn’t tell him how to fix it, she doesn’t even tell him to fix it, she just says “they have no wine.” [By the way, this is great parenting, - don’t nag or fuss or tell your kid what to do, simply state the situation and leave the rest up to them.] so that’s all she says
“ they have no wine.”
you can almost hear the exasperation in his voice. “Mom, this isn’t the time. This isn’t how it is supposed to begin. This is my thing, so don’t tell me when to start, ok?”
of course Mary hasn’t said anything but that they are out of wine.
See what Mary knows, as a mother, is that the time is never right, and if you wait for a perfect beginning nothing will ever get done. She knows that once you are on your way there is another kind of splendor in the real, in the doing. It is a rustier, more worn and tattered beauty, but it has been begun. In the company of people who will add their own imperfection, their own misunderstandings, and their own shabby glory. They will do it wrong, and they will save it, and they will screw it up, and they will be beautiful, and they will add things you never thought of. and that is the rub of incarnation. when you are a part of this world you have no choice but to do your work here in this world.
If you wait until your inner vision perfectly matches this messy world, you will miss it all, because it ain’t gonna happen.
Welcome Word to our untidy reality.
So you start when the need in front of you is in your power to fill, no matter how “important.” I wouldn’t be surprised if most of us would prefer the cool and dramatic calls. There is a church that I pass on my way to the library that has a sign that always provides challenging theological morsels for my walk. They had one over Christmas that said something like don’t get about tickle me Elmo, Get Jesus! I took turns reading it tickle me Jesus, or picturing the look on a small child face when they unwrapped a First century Palestinian Rabbi when they had asked for a red giggling toy.
this summer though they had up for a couple of weeks, Don’t impress people, impress God.
the big question that comes to my mind is, “what precisely do they think will impress the creator of the entire universe? The one who came up with the whole idea of space and time. I think wanting to impress God could lead to a lifelong standstill. While the neighbors might ooh and aah over your latest lawn ornament, God herself knit you together in your mother’s womb. oh yes, but almighty did you see how good I was today? If we are looking for things that will impress God, I am concerned that we will have to look a very long time for the right thing. The other really disturbing image is a God who has a list of impressive and not impressive people. The love of God is really really big. None of us are unimpressive enough to be outside of that kind of love, nor are we ever going to get that far above our brothers and sisters. Seems like a bad game. Just saying.
Jesus’ public ministry begins appropriately enough surrounded by people who don’t have enough, he starts with need and thirst and radical transformation.
So how do we want to be transformed? Who wouldn’t mind a miracle. Here I am lord, change me. Make me organized, out of debt, with a better job, less stress, and maybe 10 pounds thinner. These are the sorts of transformations we try to enact on ourselves, and already now by the 17th of January we have given up most of them. so come on Jesus, help a sister out, right?
If God needs us to liven up this party that we are living today, what changes will he need to make in us?
Chances are it will be more a need for us to be broken open; to weep with the world when we listen to news reports from Haiti; to hold every other wounded, messed up person you meet, in love and gentleness. To lose our ability to hold grudges and live in fear. to forget ourselves, to shake off our pride in what little we have done; to no longer try to fill ourselves to escape the pain of a hurting humanity; to no longer hoard the wealth we have been entrusted with; to say yes to the needs in front of us.
imagine it just for a second,
Like the water in the cool stone jugs of ritual and history, habit and place, when we are transformed, our best is still yet to come.
We are transformed so that we may begin our story of ministry.
The good wine for our celebrations is just now being drawn from the stony jars of our past. And some people may say to us what the steward says- why did you wait this long to be glorious?
There was perfectly good wine before. oh, but what can we become when let ourselves be transformed by the love of Christ-??
Now that wine, will change the world,
that wine will need new wineskins,
that wine will poured out, and shared among friends
that is the wine that is served when there is enough for everyone.
and that wine is the cup of salvation.
This whole amazing ministry of Jesus begins with him stepping into the immediate need before him. And even if this wasn’t the beginning he had hoped for, we all have to start somewhere.
So, What if years from now they tell the story of your work here on earth starting with tomorrow? Maybe you have heard the voice of God calling softly that you are beloved and now you are waiting for further instructions.
here they are: start here - start now.
Amen
Christ the King
Preached November 22nd 2009 at St David of Wales
Christ the King Sunday
2 Samuel 23:1-7
Psalm 132:1-13, (14-19)
Revelation 1:4b-8
John 18:33-37
God, we thank you for your kingdom of mercy and disarming love. May we gaze into the eyes of your son and pledge:
“the truth does not belong to me but I belong to the truth”
may we listen always for the voice that came to testify to the truth, and may we have the courage to not only hear but to respond.
Amen
Today is Christ the King Sunday, where we celebrate the kingship of Jesus. And while Jesus used kingdom metaphors quite often when he was trying to explain in terms we might understand what it was about the nature of God, and God’s vision for the way the humanity could live together, I am not convinced that he was particularly fond of king language for himself.
In contrast to Peters turn playing “Jesus’ true identity” where he gets it just right with Messiah, Jesus is a bit under whelmed with Pilate's “King of the Jews” entry.
this is the name he gets crucified under, and there is little doubt why. A king without obvious power and glory is apparently easy to mock. We praise, and love, and fear and despise power and those with it.
This is a new feast, relatively its only been celebrated since 1925. When pope Pious XI seeing the shape of increasingly fascist Europe and the rise of Mussolini, come up with the idea. It seems a bold statement, especially in his increasingly oppressive political climate to say “brothers and sisters, lets remember that this world is not our true home, Let us remember to whom we owe our allegiance, and what kind of king it is that we are following.”
It is also the last Sunday of the liturgical year and the new year’s eve of the church.
We are here at the pivotal moment in the liturgical year when we shift from the green and growing days of ordinary time in to the purple twilight and deep blues of advent, We are ready to move the markers in our prayer books back to the beginning of the readings, and wait for the birth of the child that will turn the whole world inside out.
It is not a bad time to reassess what we have been up to since Pentecost. Do we think that any of our neighbors and friends would have noticed that the holy spirit came and has perched on our heads like tongues of flame since May?
Do the folks around us think- “wow- there is somebody on fire for justice, peace and reconciling love?”
and if not, why not?
Do the people who encounter us in our daily lives say to themselves, you’re not from around here are you?
How is it that you can tell where someone is from, perhaps it is the way they talk or the peculiar way they do things.
Wouldn’t it be great to have a passport proclaiming ourselves citizens of the truth. Here we are in this world hopefully a little confused hopefully a little disoriented. Because this world that we live in is nothing like our home country, the kingdom of our hearts. We hear the one whose voice echoes to us and sings to our deepest heart about our homeland we can hear it if we remember what kind of kingdom we come from and what kind of kingdom we will be going home to someday.
In the gospel reading today Pilate is trying to figure out where Jesus is coming from. He obviously has the expectation of Jesus grasping at earthly power, and when Jesus questions his question Pilate answers I am not like you He says “I am not a Jew” Your Nation and the chief priests handed you over. and Jesus says Oh No! This is not my nation. this is not my county those are not my leaders. My kingdom is not of this world.
Pilate asks “so, what are you, the KING??
and Jesus says “no, I am the voice of truth. I will testify to the reality that is love and that you in you your visions of power cannot see and I am here to proclaim The Truth, and you sweet Pilate are going to kill me for it.”
maybe this is our Advent invitation-
to be a follower of Jesus. is to be from a kingdom not from this world to be obedient citizen of the truth. We don’t like to belong to anything outside of ourselves, so much of our religious language is acquisitional.
I believe
I have done it,
I have owned it.
but rather by asking by what and by whom are we owned?
where is our allegiance, who is our authority, where is our citizenship, and who is our king?
in the Baptismal covenant we have laid out the terms of our kingdom. It is if you will our pledge of allegiance, our charter.
in it we pledge in to
• renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?
• renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?
• renounce all sinful desires that draw us from the love of God?
• turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as our Savior?
• put our whole trust in his grace and love?
• promise to follow and obey him as our Lord?
• continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?
• to persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever we fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord.
• to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?
• to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves?
• to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?
When I was in Catecumenate last year I found it interesting that of all these mad impossible vows it was obedience that caused the most anxiety. I think there a number of people for whom the very idea of obedience is a threat. to some to obey is to follow blindly the authoritarian commands without thought.
It is of course very wise to mistrust this kind of abusive power, This is I think exactly what our dear friend Pious was trying to say back in 1925. But lets not let our fear of the twisting of obedience make us close ourselves off from any voice that is not our own. The roots of the Greek word we have as obedience are to be under and to hear.
“Sit down and listen” if you will
Obedience to Jesus is a following kind of obedience a, listening humble intent awareness. We cannot be obedient to Christ and not pay attention to what he says, not only through scripture but whispered in the stillness of our hearts.
Two days ago, down in Eugene the Diocese of Oregon elected its tenth bishop
Michael Hanley. In our tradition we have a special relationship I think to obedience. Being Episcopal means having Bishops, and in ordination priests and deacons vow obedience to those bishops, but they are not kings and they are elected in the midst of an invitation to the holy spirit by people who have promised to listen to his voice.
We need to listen carefully to the voices of those around us, not only the bishops, but also the children, and the poor and the hungry. We must listen carefully for the voice of Christ. He told Pilate that everyone who belongs to the truth will.
This is not our true home, we are all in exile here, and we can sing in strange lands because we are fully poised and ready for the sound of the voice of the one who testifies to the truth which is our true home. So lets enter into Advent and get very quiet and listen for the voice of our King.
Amen
Christ the King Sunday
2 Samuel 23:1-7
Psalm 132:1-13, (14-19)
Revelation 1:4b-8
John 18:33-37
God, we thank you for your kingdom of mercy and disarming love. May we gaze into the eyes of your son and pledge:
“the truth does not belong to me but I belong to the truth”
may we listen always for the voice that came to testify to the truth, and may we have the courage to not only hear but to respond.
Amen
Today is Christ the King Sunday, where we celebrate the kingship of Jesus. And while Jesus used kingdom metaphors quite often when he was trying to explain in terms we might understand what it was about the nature of God, and God’s vision for the way the humanity could live together, I am not convinced that he was particularly fond of king language for himself.
In contrast to Peters turn playing “Jesus’ true identity” where he gets it just right with Messiah, Jesus is a bit under whelmed with Pilate's “King of the Jews” entry.
this is the name he gets crucified under, and there is little doubt why. A king without obvious power and glory is apparently easy to mock. We praise, and love, and fear and despise power and those with it.
This is a new feast, relatively its only been celebrated since 1925. When pope Pious XI seeing the shape of increasingly fascist Europe and the rise of Mussolini, come up with the idea. It seems a bold statement, especially in his increasingly oppressive political climate to say “brothers and sisters, lets remember that this world is not our true home, Let us remember to whom we owe our allegiance, and what kind of king it is that we are following.”
It is also the last Sunday of the liturgical year and the new year’s eve of the church.
We are here at the pivotal moment in the liturgical year when we shift from the green and growing days of ordinary time in to the purple twilight and deep blues of advent, We are ready to move the markers in our prayer books back to the beginning of the readings, and wait for the birth of the child that will turn the whole world inside out.
It is not a bad time to reassess what we have been up to since Pentecost. Do we think that any of our neighbors and friends would have noticed that the holy spirit came and has perched on our heads like tongues of flame since May?
Do the folks around us think- “wow- there is somebody on fire for justice, peace and reconciling love?”
and if not, why not?
Do the people who encounter us in our daily lives say to themselves, you’re not from around here are you?
How is it that you can tell where someone is from, perhaps it is the way they talk or the peculiar way they do things.
Wouldn’t it be great to have a passport proclaiming ourselves citizens of the truth. Here we are in this world hopefully a little confused hopefully a little disoriented. Because this world that we live in is nothing like our home country, the kingdom of our hearts. We hear the one whose voice echoes to us and sings to our deepest heart about our homeland we can hear it if we remember what kind of kingdom we come from and what kind of kingdom we will be going home to someday.
In the gospel reading today Pilate is trying to figure out where Jesus is coming from. He obviously has the expectation of Jesus grasping at earthly power, and when Jesus questions his question Pilate answers I am not like you He says “I am not a Jew” Your Nation and the chief priests handed you over. and Jesus says Oh No! This is not my nation. this is not my county those are not my leaders. My kingdom is not of this world.
Pilate asks “so, what are you, the KING??
and Jesus says “no, I am the voice of truth. I will testify to the reality that is love and that you in you your visions of power cannot see and I am here to proclaim The Truth, and you sweet Pilate are going to kill me for it.”
maybe this is our Advent invitation-
to be a follower of Jesus. is to be from a kingdom not from this world to be obedient citizen of the truth. We don’t like to belong to anything outside of ourselves, so much of our religious language is acquisitional.
I believe
I have done it,
I have owned it.
but rather by asking by what and by whom are we owned?
where is our allegiance, who is our authority, where is our citizenship, and who is our king?
in the Baptismal covenant we have laid out the terms of our kingdom. It is if you will our pledge of allegiance, our charter.
in it we pledge in to
• renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?
• renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?
• renounce all sinful desires that draw us from the love of God?
• turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as our Savior?
• put our whole trust in his grace and love?
• promise to follow and obey him as our Lord?
• continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?
• to persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever we fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord.
• to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?
• to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves?
• to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?
When I was in Catecumenate last year I found it interesting that of all these mad impossible vows it was obedience that caused the most anxiety. I think there a number of people for whom the very idea of obedience is a threat. to some to obey is to follow blindly the authoritarian commands without thought.
It is of course very wise to mistrust this kind of abusive power, This is I think exactly what our dear friend Pious was trying to say back in 1925. But lets not let our fear of the twisting of obedience make us close ourselves off from any voice that is not our own. The roots of the Greek word we have as obedience are to be under and to hear.
“Sit down and listen” if you will
Obedience to Jesus is a following kind of obedience a, listening humble intent awareness. We cannot be obedient to Christ and not pay attention to what he says, not only through scripture but whispered in the stillness of our hearts.
Two days ago, down in Eugene the Diocese of Oregon elected its tenth bishop
Michael Hanley. In our tradition we have a special relationship I think to obedience. Being Episcopal means having Bishops, and in ordination priests and deacons vow obedience to those bishops, but they are not kings and they are elected in the midst of an invitation to the holy spirit by people who have promised to listen to his voice.
We need to listen carefully to the voices of those around us, not only the bishops, but also the children, and the poor and the hungry. We must listen carefully for the voice of Christ. He told Pilate that everyone who belongs to the truth will.
This is not our true home, we are all in exile here, and we can sing in strange lands because we are fully poised and ready for the sound of the voice of the one who testifies to the truth which is our true home. So lets enter into Advent and get very quiet and listen for the voice of our King.
Amen
First Sermon ever.
Preached September 20, 2009 at St. David of Wales
Proverbs 31:10-31
Psalm 1
James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a
Mark 9:30-37
A couple of months ago when Sara asked if I could preach a couple of Sundays this fall, we both pulled out our calendars and picked some days at random.
I got home and looked up the lectionary readings and thought oh no. surely I didn’t just agree to preach on Proverbs 31.
now Proverbs is full of good advice but it is also full of passages that can too easily be used as weapons. And as coming originally from the south I am aware of the cultural weight of passages like proverbs 31, for women who define an entire life on one scriptural passage.
So a few weeks later I was at a friends house and while the kids were playing and the moms were all just sitting there, she turned to me and said, “ I know you are into that churchy stuff do you know what would it mean if someone signs her e-mails
P. 31 mom?
I must admit there is a part of me that was hoping this unknown sister in faith was referring to herself as a psalm 31 mom, which I could relate to
My life is consumed by anguish
and my years by groaning;
my strength fails because of my affliction,
and my bones grow weak.
“Because of all my enemies,
I am the utter contempt of my neighbors;
I am a dread to my friends—
those who see me on the street flee from me.
I am forgotten by them as though I were dead;
I have become like broken pottery.”
however..
I am pretty sure the room mother meant proverbs 31. the websites and books that trumpet this proverb above other scriptural ideals for living mostly focus on its wifely character who values homemaking above all things.
I tried to sit with this image of God-
I will confess a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea that the creator of all things who loved all creation into being and longs to breath compassion into our every thought valuing even more good housekeeping skills.
That someday Jesus will say to me, “oh honey , welcome home- now we will see each other face to face and live into an eternity of blinding love. But first we need to talk about the housework, it was pretty sloppy sometimes, and the laundry – what was that?
I told my friend that the new room mother would probably be a huge help when it came time to make and sell linen garments and plant the vineyard.
So if not an impeccably well groomed house --what is it then that God desires from us?
in his letter James is pretty clear about his vision of the kingdom
For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.
Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.
Easy enough right?
Also Jesus in speaking with the disciples in the gospel of Mark,
wants to know what they were arguing about, you can almost imagine them shuffling around, not making eye contact “who was arguing? US?
no
But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.
" Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me."
So it is our craving our desire to be first, our coveting of possessions, our unwillingness to welcome Christ in the form of children, our bitter envy and selfish ambition, that seem to be the problem here.
Neither mentions the laundry once.
We are called to become a totally different sort of people than is common to us. We are to unload and unpack all of our naturally self-serving way of being with others and turn them inside out. we are to seek to be last of all, and servant of all.
This is what being Church is all about.
How do we really come together and live in this crazy way that both Jesus and James talk about?
Well, there is a tradition that speaks of the Church being the bride of Christ, and an older tradition of Israel being the wife of God.
So what would it look like for us if the good wife from Proverbs were the good wife of Christ.
She does him good, and not harm,
all the days of her life.
lets start then by not doing harm-
Let us ask ourselves if Christ is harmed by our actions and let us see what sort of Choices that guides us to. keeping in mind that Christ is the child held up to the disciples. So after the church makes sure that none of its actions are harming Christ in the form of all the world’s wounded and fragile and frightened children, we could move on.
she brings her food from far away.
lets nourish each other and not stay within our own mindset. lets look outside our own walls to see what will feed us. Lets not assume that only the traditions we already have are all that is needed. lets learn form our brothers and sisters in far away places. both geographically and conceptually.
She rises while it is still night
and provides food for her household
and tasks for her servant girls.
This is a church that does not exist for its own comfort, this is a church that rises up and feeds her household. And lucky us, as soon as we are fed there is work for us to do. We are the servant girls.
She considers a field and buys it;
with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard.
She girds herself with strength,
and makes her arms strong.
She makes linen garments and sells them;
she supplies the merchant with sashes.
So this is a busy and productive church. the world would most definitely notice a church buying fields and planting them, and the best reason I know of to plant a vineyard is to make wine. this a strong church. the church is part of the world and if we are going to own land and collect money then we should enter into such work joyfully.
She opens her hand to the poor,
and reaches out her hands to the needy.
and she isn’t doing all of this for her own household, the needy don’t to reach out to this church, no she is reaching out to them. This is what she does with her wealth.
She is not afraid for her household when it snows,
for all her household are clothed in crimson.
I love this part, she is not afraid. In our church do we know that we need not be afraid because we are clothed in Crimson, or when the snow comes are shivering and ashamed? does our church take care of its household?
Her husband is known in the city gates,
taking his seat among the elders of the land.
this is why we would do such things. not for our own glory , but just imagine if the church took deep care of those inside and outside what they might begin to think of our Lord.
Strength and dignity are her clothing,
and she laughs at the time to come.
She opens her mouth with wisdom,
and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.
When we look at our newspapers and the despair for sale on every corner, leaking out of every radio do we know that our church is a refuge from the cynical darkness? is she laughing at the time to come? Is wisdom and kindness what you think of when you think of the church?
Her children rise up and call her happy;
her husband too, and he praises her:
What if we are called to be happy?
what if that is actually Jesus’ biggest hope for us?
we are her children, however, we are also the church
It is when we come together how we act and what we say and our every action is what determines what kind of wife we are being to Christ.
we are called to harm no one, take of each other, take care of the world, have kindness on our tongues, and be happy.
we cannot do any of this work if our primary goals are to get ahead and look good, to take care of ourselves first. and be the greatest.
the good news is that we can do this, we can be this kind of Church,
the bad news is that We have to do this, it is up to us to be this kind of church. We cannot expect it from our clergy, or wait for the diocese, or maybe find another denomination that is doing it better. We are the church. and this is hard stuff.
Sometimes it feels like a long distance relationship.
How can we ever hope to be this kind of wife, when our beloved sometimes seems so far away.
o Jesus- we pray come back, we cant do it without you,
and Jesus says to us
here I am
take this bread, drink this cup, and when we do Christ is broken open and poured out and the only thing we can do is fall on our knees hold out our hands, receive the gift of God with us, and say
amen
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